Not the Rebound Guy by Abby Knox (best classic romance novels txt) 📕

night. Linda’s picking me up. It’s not a senior-center endorsed club because there’s too much drinking. So don’t wait up!”

“Grams! You party animal. How late are you going to be? You need your rest.”

“You want me to drive you?” Garrett offers.

Grams looks from Eliza to me and smirks. “You two are a couple of old hens. It just so happens we lay out all our pill organizers on the counter, like a cookie swap, and then we watch to see what happens.”

“Grams!”

She waves us off as both of us look horrified. “You two have no sense of humor. Of course, I don’t do that.”

I can’t help myself; I have to reach over and slide my arm around Eliza.

“All right,” I say. “Go get your disco nap, Betty.”

Chapter Thirteen

Eliza

We spend the better part of the afternoon dutifully chopping zucchini and rhubarb, bagging it and freezing it until such a time as Grams wants to make bread.

Garrett and I work well together in the kitchen. He does most of the chopping, and I bag it up, measuring and labeling bags, and writing everything down into the planner.

“Why are you logging all the produce on paper? I think you’ve done enough with the strawberries,” he says.

I explain, “She might consider with all of the zucchini she has out there, adding sweet breads to the mix. It’s a good idea. Diversifying. Plus, her bread recipe is fantastic.

“That sounds good,” Garrett says.

“Wanna dip into the recipe box and try it out?”

He laughs. “She’s checked out for the afternoon; we might as well.”

I open all the cabinets until I find the box labeled “family recipes.” Then I dig through it and grunt. “These are a mess. She has not organized them by type or even by origin. Auntie Rudy’s cheese ball is right next to Cousin Squat’s apple pie.”

“I have so many questions.”

“Me too!” I say. “There’s no rhyme or reason.”

I lay out each index card on the table and sort them by type: breakfast, potluck, appetizers, entrees, and desserts.

Garret stands over me with his hands on his hips. I look up, and the amused curl of his lip makes me pause. “What?”

“That wasn’t my question. You have an Aunt Rudy and an Uncle Squat?”

I blink up at him. “Yes. Don’t you have any relatives who are only known to you by their nicknames?”

Suddenly, he’s grabbing me and pulling me to my feet.

“Where are we going?”

“Outside. We’ve been cooped up in this kitchen all day. We can make bread later.”

I’m happy to follow him anywhere. “Where are we going?”

“It’s time the queens meet each other.”

“What are you talking about?”

Garrett doesn’t answer, and then I see we’re headed toward the beehives.

I hold my breath. “Don’t I need a fancy suit and a helmet and like an incense burner to keep them docile?”

“Nope. We’re just going to look, and they’re calm right now.”

“How do you know I’m not allergic to bee stings?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“What are we talking about then? Come on.”

We trudge through the grass, through the fence all the way to the shady area in the grove of trees behind his house, down by the creek. It makes my heart happy that he’s picked such a pretty spot for his bees to live. Trees, water, wildflowers.

He talks all the while as he opens up the hive for me to have a look. “See…they’re just doing their thing.”

I look at the partition contents that he’s opened for me, and it’s mesmerizing. I’m not going to lie; I’m still feeling a little bit afraid of this enormous mass of tiny creatures.

“Queen, meet queen,” he says. I look to where he’s pointing. I have to gingerly bend to get a closer look at where she is. Bigger and longer than the rest of the tiny buzzing creatures, she finally stands out. “She’s got attitude, that’s for sure,” I say.

“And up here,” he says, pointing to the section of comb where the tiny hexagons are dark and wet, “is where the babies are. The workers feed them until it’s time to cover them up.”

All of a sudden, the Magic School Bus episode comes back to me. “I remember this!” Like a teacher’s pet, I rattle off bee facts that have been sitting dormant in my inner child’s brain.

Garrett looks impressed.

“And look,” he says, “that one there, looks like he’s dancing? He’s drawing a map to tell the other ones where the good stuff is. He’s telling them how to get to Grams’ meadow.”

I laugh. “Everybody wants to go to Grams’ house.”

He says, “I knew as soon as I saw the property was next to a field of homegrown veggies and flowers that that was where I wanted to beeee.”

“Nice pun.”

“Oh, I’m full of bee puns. I’m buzzing with them.”

“Oh my god. Stop.”

“What’s the matter? Did I kill your buzz?”

I point at him and playfully raise my voice. “NO! You don’t get to do two puns in a row off the same word!”

“Well, now that I know the rules,” he chuckles, putting the hive drawer back in place.

He takes my hand and says, “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“For a walk.”

A “walk” around his place entails a lot more than simply walking through the grass. We stop to feed the chickens, visit the baby chicks in the incubators, peek inside the goat barn, which consists mainly of a small old tool shed that houses Gertie and two tiny baby goats.

Finally, we make our way down to the creek and remove our shoes. “Please don’t tell me we’re going to catch our lunch. This is about as much nature as I can take right now.”

He laughs. “I don’t have my pole. You’re safe.”

I chuckle at that. “Well, not that kind of pole,” I say.

“Oh man, I walked right into that.”

The sunshine sparkling off the surface of the creek makes me happy. And then I realize I feel more comfortable than I’ve felt in quite a long time.

We make our way over to the gazebo and sit in the shade, where we chat some more,